Make X born

[Benjamin Barrett]

"Be born gay" seems fine, too. I think it's the combination of passive and causative that sounds strange.

1. My grandfather made my parents raise me that way
is essentially equivalent to
2. My grandfather made me be raised that way

but number 2 sounds strange.

3. My grandfather made it such that I was raised that way

Although stilted, number 3 sounds fine--though "made" is no longer causative.

Benjamin Barrett
Seattle, WA

Lean Ainu! Learn Ainu! https://sites.google.com/site/aynuitak1/videos

On Aug 16, 2013, at 5:07 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at ATT.NET> wrote:

> At 8/16/2013 05:28 PM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
>> "Be born [in some manner]" doesn't strike me as odd.
>
> But when the "manner" is omitted, as in "make [X = person]
> born"?  Which strikes me as odd, whereas "be born gay" is in my
> dialect.  And only God can make a tree be born (to paraphrase someone).
>
> Joel
>
>> I looked through the lyrics at
>> http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/ladygaga/bornthisway.html and didn't
>> see anything odd, though "born" is not used causatively.
>>
>> Benjamin Barrett
>> Seattle, WA
>>
>> Lean Ainu! Learn Ainu! https://sites.google.com/site/aynuitak1/videos
>>
>> On Aug 16, 2013, at 2:09 PM, "Baker, John" <JBAKER at STRADLEY.COM> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Do you have any issues with the Lady Gaga song, Born This Way?
>>>
>>> The clip has been taken down from YouTube, but I presume can be
>> found somewhere on the Colbert Nation website, http://www.colbertnation.com/.
>>>
>>>
>>> John Baker
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
>> Behalf Of Benjamin Barrett
>>> Sent: Friday, August 16, 2013 2:32 AM
>>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>> Subject: Make X born
>>>
>>> Starting about 6:50 in the video at
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Yy1sCJn5_q4
>> from the Colbert Report yesterday, an Appalachian man uses the
>> construction "makes X born [that way]" in reference to god creating
>> people so they are gay at birth. He uses it more than once.
>>>
>>> This construction is not allowable for me. If I had to use
>> "born," I might say, "makes X be born," but there is still
>> something odd to me about this.
>>>
>>> It occurs to me that "That blouse needs washed" might be involved
>> (I can't say that, either), but something else seems to be at play.
>>

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